Keuse
by Novocain
Summary: ..She closes her eyes as the camera flashes. It won't do to be crying in her wedding pictures, after all.. Hermione and Padma. Femmeslash. Gift fic for Addictive Passion.


_keuse: choice_

**. ... .**

Piano fingers whisper up a silky inner thigh and dream again.

Padma. Hermione.

**. ... .**

And she never does feel guilty when they touch. It is when they separate - when ink-stained fingertips part from dusky skin - that the situation alights in Hermione's mind with the deceptively gentle caress of a viper.

Engaged. Hermione is engaged - to Ron Weasley, of course. Everyone has seen it coming since fourth year, and it isn't a surprise at all.

So they never feel guilty when they touch - actually, Padma never feels guilty at all - but Hermione is likely to be destroyed by the infinite self-hate that engulfs her when she slides out of Padma's bed before sunrise and catches a glimpse of herself in Padma's exquisitely carved vanity. There is a stranger, nude and covered in hickeys with the half-light of the approaching dawn casting shadows on her face. There are eight furrows starting beneath her shoulder blades and ending in crescent-shaped scabs, sharp slants down to the small of her back. It is imperative that she heals those and has a talk with Padma about what they can get away with. Ron doesn't have any nails.

Ron doesn't have a lot of things, but Hermione is happy with him. She is. She has known him for the better part of two decades. He makes her laugh, and their nonsensical fights entertain her like nothing does. She loves him. She loves him with all of her heart, she is sure. She just wishes he was Padma.

No one has seen that coming except Hermione.

**. ... .**

Hermione thinks back to the beginning/end and - well. She tried to stop the Thing between them before it grew roots a mile long (before Padma entrenched herself so deeply within Hermione that tearing her out would take Hermione's soul with her - before Ron-and-Hermione turned into Ron-and-Hermione-wanting-Padma), but Padma's smile slipped behind her barriers in the midst of all-nighters at the Research and Development Department and shared lunch breaks. She tried to stop it. Hermione has always been a brilliant and knowledgeable child/girl/woman, and she knew a very important/inconsequential fact three seconds after locking eyes with the quietly beautiful woman who was standing in the doorway of her office, blinking blearily at the seven A.M. sun and asking for the Pindone case study - with her bun full of quills and her wrinkled Ministry-issue robe absently unfastened, showcasing a camisole and paisley boxers. She knew that Padmavati Priti Patil would destroy her. Important: she should have cared. Inconsequential: she didn't.

Her heart still clicks into place every time she catches sight of Padma, and it is an inaudible melody that Hermione never stops loving. It is worth a lot of things. It is worth guilt and pain and scorn and hatred.

It is worth a lot of things.

**. ... .**

When Hermione first gave in (drowned in that wonderful kiss, all stumbling mayhem in the book stacks, clumsy and feels-too-right and _finally_), she argued to herself that it was a good way to go. Now, though - it is two years later and she wants the subterfuge to be over with. Sleepless nights and stress have reduced her once curvy figure to too-thin. She makes sure to stay away from Mrs. Weasley because, guilt aside, the food the matronly woman would try to force-feed Hermione would probably make her puke. Ron, as oblivious as always, doesn't notice her recent lack of appetite. No one except Padma does, actually. This is because people see what they want to see, and if Hermione has lost a couple of pounds, well, that fiance of hers had better make sure that she stops working long enough to eat.

Hermione knows that her lover is worried, but there is nothing Padma can do except introduce food play to their nights. She cannot ride Hermione about eating the way her fiance could if the dunce ever figures out that Hermione needs it. Padma is nothing to Hermione Granger while in the public eye, and she cannot help her lover.

Hermione just wants it to be finished. One way or the other, she wants to say with an undivided mind: _i love you; i will be content with you; i will not ungently stroke your hair; i promise i won't cook for you, so don't worry_. Her decisive mentality has been sacrificed - her work ethic compromised - her health waved off - her heart claimed - her questing mind satisfied - her love/infatuation/obsession/need returned. These are downsides and upsides, and she can't honestly say that they outweigh each other.

Lie. This is a lie. Of course she can. Hermione doesn't want a red-headed man with innumerable freckles, Quidditch-callused hands, and a mischievous grin. She doesn't want a half-dozen children or a million pointless arguments or twenty-seven moments spanning her life when she is unable to breathe through the pain of missing Padma terribly. She doesn't want flat, hard pectorals or stubbly kisses.

She wants a mix-and-matched brunette with dusky skin, ink-stained fingertips, a penchant for paisley boxers, and a slow, quiet smile. She wants a flat for two that tastes like home and a million exhilarating debates and twenty-seven moments spanning her life when roses bloom as she strolls with her partner. She wants breasts to cup and suckle and silky lips that beg to be bitten.

She wants the entrancement, the dance (waltz: riposte calmly and elegantly before stumbling vivaciously into the tango: the harsh, tantalizing, deep push-and-pull between breath-soft and need-you-now that erupts and flurries down into the sway: hold tightly and brush foreheads and shiver as eyelashes brush against cheekbones) - the swoop and the fall and the wind-dizzy bite.

She wants Padma. Hermione knows this. She wants wants wants wants her lover to be hers in the view of the world. Only...she cannot have her.

Hermione is engaged to Ron. She will not rip out his heart and coo at it. She will not give her muggle family yet another reason to distance themselves. She will not tell her fiance the truth, and she will not make Harry choose between his two best friends. She will not think to herself that these reasons for not leaving Ron seem to be very small and worthless and painless. She will not clench her fists until the muscles seize up and wonder why she is not doing all of those things. She will not. She refuses to.

She - she shoves Padma away with cold eyes and bored, vicious words. She smiles falsely at her mum when they meet to discuss the wedding plans and finally set a date. She abstains from sliding into clenching warmth, staring into darklit eyes that scream for her - from staring into darklit eyes at all. She thinks of how she is so close to a breakthrough on her project at work. She considers transferring departments soon - after her inevitable success occurs, of course (but she won't let a Reason To Do So come to mind. She is simply bored, unchallenged - looking for a more interesting job than her dreams. It has nothing to do with Padma's proximity). She swears to live the life she agreed to when she accepted Ron's engagement ring; she will and she does. She does everything and doesn't hope for happiness. She is not disappointed. _She has always been a brilliant and knowledgeable child/girl/woman_, after all, and she knew from the start that Everything - the husband and the job and the best friend and the romantic story of the childhood sweetheart - isn't all it is made out to be.

BECAUSE IT DOESN'T HAVE padma, BUT SHE REFUSES THINK THAT.

**. ... .**

The wedding passes in a blur of grinning faces and enthusiastic congratulations. She finds herself searching for Padma in the crowd, but she knows that her ex has not come to whisk her away - save her from herself and her stupid decisions. Hermione knows that she threw away her personal honor the moment she let herself kiss Padma and become a cheater, so why -

She closes her eyes as the camera flashes. It won't do to be crying in her wedding pictures, after all. She closes her eyes and blocks all regrets and questions and yearnings from her mind. It is done. It is done done done, and she swore. Promises mean something.

(Promises mean nothing, and Hermione has already proved that, hasn't she? She has run delicate, trembling fingers down Padma's sensitive midriff and felt her core pulse in time with her rapid heart. She has proved it. Promises mean nothing, and all that is holding Hermione back from a future she could be happy with is herself.)

**. ... .**

Hermione closes her eyes as the parchment in front of her blurs again, and the sounds of her sluggish movements in the silence of the dead library are like the cracking of sticks. She heaves a silent breath as she taps her wand against the dark circles under her eyes and renews the glamour. She does not notice when the spell sputters and dies a moment later - she is too tired. She can't sleep naturally (without Padma there is only the tall, muscled frame of Ron and the sound of his snores) and has resorted to Dreamless Sleep, but the potion is not meant to be a permanent solution and is failing to work now. She has passed exhaustion, and even her hazy sight dashes her sleeplessness-induced (madness-induced) hopes that in seconds Padma will be standing in front of her. _She swears there will be _a disapproving stare and hands that demand she come to bed.

_Three, two, one_...

She closes her eyes. She closes closes closes her eyes and desperately, childishly hopes that when she opens them, this will not be her life.

It doesn't work, of course. It never has.

**. ... .**

Piano fingers rub against painfully dry eyes and brush away tears that aren't there.

Hermione.

* * *

**A/N**: Written for Addictive Passion. I'm exhausted and somewhat unsure about the overall effect of this one. Feedback is greatly appreciated. I've been on a femmeslash kick lately, if you haven't noticed.

Title: what language is it and what does it mean? The first to correctly answer this gets to request a fic. Anonymous reviewers who participate need to leave me a way to contact them.


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